Customer Reviews:
Decline of the Vanderbilts, "Fortune's Children".......2007-10-15
If the colorful and less than admirable qualities of the illiterate 'Commodore' Vanderbilt and his brood are of interest add "Fortune's Children" to your list of books. The old man owned the New York Central Railroad, and his office was in New York's Grand Central Terminal ( It is NOT a station ). How he made, by borrowing a hundred dollars from his mother while on their farm on Staten Island, a fortune that ended at his grave on Staten Island is a tale worthy of outlandish fiction worthy of a few years of Soap Opera episodes. The story is filled with back stabbing Business deals, a man more concerned with the future of his money than his family, gold digging hoes, and how this fabulous fortune vanished in 3 generations of the wildest most wasteful spending one could imagine. I highly recommend 'Fortune's Children'. the book offered here is a teaser to that book, and it has a lot of excellent illustrations.
Great Buy!.......2007-09-29
This is a very informative book about a self-made family that became very wealthy and well known. This was a great buy. $20.00 cheaper than I could get it at the Builtmore Estate.
Thank you Amazon!
First Family of the Gilded Age.......2005-11-26
This book is wonderful, I really could not put it down. The pictures are exquisite and the text is highly informative. The Vanderbilts may have not always been happy, but by God they did enjoy their money. Unlike many of the Gilded Age American aristocrats, like the Rockefeller's and Carnegie, the Vanderbilts where not ashamed of their money and they wanted to show it off...granted they do not have the lofty philanthropic legacy of the Rockefeller's or Andrew Carnegie, but they did give us wonderful estates and a taste of what it was like to be fabulously wealthy at this amazing time, they lived like French nobility before the Revolution, and to this day when you list the ten greatest American mansions, you can bet that the Vanderbilts will be well represented. This book captures all of this and more...if you have any interest in this Age or this family or quite frankly interesting people and good writing then you will enjoy this book, it really is a five star book.
Vanderbuilding with the Vanderbilts.......2002-04-27
If you are a fan of the Vanderbilts or of the Gilded Era, this book is a must. I have to admitt that I own lots of coffee table books. Usually, I just look at the pictures, read the captions, but never a word of the text. This book caught my attention from the start. It's a wonderful history of the Vanderbilt family, although not too heavily involved. I found that the family tree charts were loads of help while reading the book ... with such a large family it would be easy to forget who's who.
The pictures are exquisite, they bring the Vanderbilts and their fabulous homes to life. There are 291 illustrations, 92 of them are in full color.
I bought this book on a visit to George Vanderbilt's Biltmore Estate in the mountains of North Carolina. If you live any where near the area, I highly recommend a visit. The house, gardens and winery are out of this world!
Splendour Aplenty!.......2000-11-04
This book serves a myriad of purposes. If you are interested in turn of the century architecture, this book is for you. If you are interested in the social mores of the day, this book is for you. If you are interested in the Vanderbilt familiy in particular, and America's aristocracy in general, this book is for you. With hundreds of wonderful photos and illustrations, and an objective account of the history of one of America's richest families, "The Vanderbilts" takes the reader back to an era of nonchalant decadence. A time when prosperity was the plaything of the gods, and the gods were called Vanderbilt, and were lead by "The Commodore". America today is enriched by the spoils of their success, boasting some of the best in arcitecture and art collections. The family who gave us Grand Central Station, The Metropolitan Opera, and a good deal of the exhibited contents of the Met Museum also provide us with a fascinating tale of the rise and reign (and stumbles and pratfalls along the way) of American royalty.
Book Description
The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette is the most authoritative book of its kind. Filled with practical advice for every occasion, business and pleasure, this book ensures that all of your social interactions will be handled with grace and confidence.
This classic guide, first published in 1952, has been fully updated to reflect the concerns of the modern reader. The advice that has made Amy Vanderbilt the first name in etiquette remains pertinent today. Here is the final word on buying and using stationery, responding to dinner invitations, hosting a party, and attending religious ceremonies. The chapter of the most enduring popularity is, of course, the one on weddings. From addressing invitations to sending thank you notes, everything a bride needs to plan the perfect wedding is easily accessible.
In addition to the time-honored guidance that has made this book a treasured reference, this updated edition contains information that addresses modern concerns of every kind. Here is advice on answering cellular phone calls in public, behaving courteously at the gym, and speaking at business meetings.
Whether you need to compose an invitation, write a letter of condolence, address your senator, set a dinner table, or buy a gift for a foreign business associate, you will find
The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette practical, down-to-earth, and always reliable.
Updated and revised by former White House Staff Coordinator Nancy Tuckerman and respected businesswoman Nancy Dunnan, this trusted book remains the most complete and authoritative guide to living well.
Customer Reviews:
Today's World Has Some Shortcomings........2005-11-23
Etiquette are the rules to apply toward others in public. When you work in the public sector, there are such a thing as manners and treating others as you want to be treated. In Sunday's local paper, there was an article "Do clothes still make the man -- or woman?" in which a former chief deputy clerk in the District Court gives accounts of how the judges treated jury members and defendants who were not properly dressed according to his wishes. Ties were required as was dress wear instead of just being clean and properly groomed. He bases his account on the 'Andy Griffith show' which still plays on local television, and used Amy Vanderbilt's GUIDE TO GRACIOUS LIVING about how to greet people on the street. Well, he is an older man, granted, but he does not follow his own advice. I saw him coming out of the History Center on the main street of town; when he acknowledged he knew me, he turned and walked around the block so as not to have to converse with me. He criticized the way people dress today in public and asks, "Whatever happened to class?"
According to this volume, which is a bit outdated but not as much as the Vanderbilt guide he used, a woman should dress according to her profession. Seeing a woman move up the ranks at the local transit system, going from old-fashioned denim dress with boots to cover the rest of her, to dressing like a common street walker, I had to make a comment, "You need to dress professional." Her boss, attired in orange pants and ball cap at a special "Meet the Manager" day, dressed down to what he perceived is the level of the riders; he asked me, "Do you think I should be wearing a suit?" and I merely said, "I will tell you what I did Ms. Pickle, "You should dress professional" if they want to receive the admiration of the public they are purportedly representing. The rudeness of some transit employees show their disrespect for the older person of different races and for their job. When we get on that bus, our lives are in the hands of these rude, surly, prejudiced persons who say derogatory remarks to and about passengers in front of others. They can refuse to stop to pick you up at their discretion, and they take advantage of that. It's not just bad manners. It shows how regressed a certain percentage of the population has become. They are ignorant and uneducated, and show it.
A man should never wear frayed shirt collars and cuffs no matter what the occasion is. I saw a local celebrity on the sidewalk outside his office with a torn place on his pants leg. Some people have no pride in their work or position in the community. Her advice: "Know who you are" and dress accordingly. In the Northeast, you must never wear white shoes and accessories after Labor Day, but that doesn't apply to the South.
A good rule for both sexes is to never dress in clothes that are too tight; they make a thin person look gaunt and a large person twice as heavy. There are people who are not interested in how they are perceived dress according to the weather and, even in public, wear ill-fitting casual wear. If they could just see themselves from the rear!
By all means, we need to smell good. I like her hand lotion but the perfume is too strong. Sometimes, riding the local buses, I have to put some of the lotion on a handkerchief and hold it to my nose, as the homeless and some others don't practice good hygiene. With the increase in rates, perhaps that smelly group of people won't be so prevelant.
This is a GREAT Book.......2005-08-30
I am a friend of Mrs. Tuckerman and she worked really hard on this book. I read this book all the time. I use it for every occasion. Give these great ladies some credit, they want to be a little old fashined then it's thier choice. If you don't like this book then don't read it or buy it. I am a devoted fan of this book. Mrs. Tuckerman is the sweetest and coolest lady her age. I myself am a asipring writer ( I write fun news type stories).
A disappointment, but still an authority.......2003-10-13
My mother has a copy of the original edition, so I grew up treating Vanderbilt's work as a constant reference for social graces. Naturally, I was overjoyed to learn that a new edition had made an appearance. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.
With no disrespect intended to Tuckerman et al for their fine work, this once-great guide is a shadow of its former self. It is no less accurate than it once was, but is unfortunately much more base. Do people really need to be told not to leave dirty dishes lying about, for example?
As a guide to minimal civilized behaviour--how not to behave like a spoiled child--it carries the tradition of excellence. However, for the finer points of etiquette, I strongly recommend tracking down a copy of the 1978 (Baldrige ed.) edition of this great reference.
Fight preventor.......2002-12-10
When in doubt, this is the book that comes out first. My husband and I pulled it out several times during our engagement to find out "how" we should do things. From setting the table to working with kitchen staff help this book has it all. (Now if I could just afford the staff!)
Etiquette or Ignorance.......2002-03-29
I heard Ms. Dunnan's book advertised on the radio and considered purchasing it until I heard her interview, including etiquette excerpts from the book. Ms. Dunnan criticized the use of cell phones, stating that only people such as medical personnel, who may have "emergencies" should have cell phones. Many jobs today require people to be accessible 24 hours a day. While "emergencies" in other occupations may not be a matter of life and death, the stakes can still be very high.
Ms. Dunnan also feels it is rude for people with long legs to rest them on seats in front of them. Should people with long legs not go to a movie theater if they can't fit comfortably in one seat? Is it also rude for tall people to sit in front of anyone at theaters, concerts or parades?
Ms. Dunnan should limit her etiquette suggestions to topics of which she has a complete understanding. Her blanket statements and judgements are the foundation on which prejudice, racism and general intolerance of others are founded.
Book Description
An elegant, witty, frank, touching, and deeply personal account of the loves both great and fleeting in the life of one of America's most celebrated and fabled women.
Born to great wealth yet kept a virtual prisoner by the custody battle that raged between her proper aunt and her self-absorbed, beautiful mother, Gloria Vanderbilt grew up in a special world. Stunningly beautiful herself, yet insecure and with a touch of wildness, she set out at a very early age to find romance. And find it she did. There were love affairs with Howard Hughes, Bill Paley, and Frank Sinatra, to name a few, and one-night stands, which she writes about with delicacy and humor, including one with the young Marlon Brando. There were marriages to men as diverse as Pat De Cicco, who abused her; the legendary conductor Leopold Stokowski, who kept his innermost secrets from her; film director Sidney Lumet; and finally writer Wyatt Cooper, the love of her life.
Now, in an irresistible memoir that is at once ruthlessly forthright, supremely stylish, full of fascinating details, and deeply touching, Gloria Vanderbilt writes at last about the subject on which she has hitherto been silent: the men in her life, why she loved them, and what each affair or marriage meant to her. This is the candid and captivating account of a life that has kept gossip writers speculating for years, as well as Gloria's own intimate description of growing up, living, marrying, and loving in the glare of the limelight and becoming, despite a family as famous and wealthy as America has ever produced, not only her own person but an artist, a designer, a businesswoman, and a writer of rare distinction.
Customer Reviews:
Who is the real Gloria?.......2007-09-24
This book lacks depth and leaves the reader feeling that we still don't know Gloria Vanderbilt. Also, why does she give the impression that she only has one living son? What kind of mother would disregard her two older children? Very sad.
A much better book on the Vanderbilts is "Fortunes Children". I recommend it.
Unattainable.......2006-08-28
I never received this book. A notice was sent to me saying the book was unattainable at this time.
I would give it 3.5 actually.......2006-08-12
The book was much shorter than I thought, and the writing was a bit too scattered, too many side notes - but good. I would average it out to be a 3.5 and you will find it funny, interesting if you know the characters or have read much about them. When you think of them as people it becomes harder to grasp, but characters seems a more realistic yardstick to use. I love Gloria Vanderbilt, I admire her and feel that she deserves applause and praise, but this one didn't do it for me. Maybe a good book to take traveling.
Thank you for this wonderful book!!.......2006-05-25
Dear Gloria Vanderbilt, i am enjoying reading your wonderful book. Thank you!! sincerely,
Joan Clement
Mind Candy... .......2006-03-30
I wanted this book after reading a commentary by Vanderbilt's son, Anderson Cooper. He was reflecting on how we adults never really like to think about, let alone read about our parents sex lives and his mother asked him to proofread her romance memoir. He played up the more racy parts of the book, which turned out to be the only racy parts of the book.
This book is not so much about romance, as it is about a woman finding he own way in the world. Gloria Vanderbilt was, of course, born rich and influential. She ran with the young and beautiful of Hollywood's golden age. She also struggled between being the proper young lady her controlling aunt expected and her desire to be noticed by her self-absorbed and very troubled mother.
It is not long or terrible complicated, but it is more moving than I had expected.
Book Description
On a November day in 1895, crowds of curious sightseers gathered outside St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue in New York, intent on spotting a small dapper bridegroom whom they knew to be a great English aristocrat awaiting his bride-to-be. When she arrived, twenty minutes late, anyone who caught a glimpse beneath Consuelo Vanderbilt's veil would have seen that her face was swollen from crying.
When Consuelo's grandfather died, he was the richest man in America. Her father soon started to spend the family fortune, enthusiastically supported by Consuelo's mother, Alva, who was determined to take the family to the top of New York society. She was adamant that her daughter should make a grand marriage, and the underfunded Duke of Marlborough was just the thing. It didn't matter that Consuelo loved someone else; as Alva once told her, "I don't ask you to think, I do the thinking, you do as you're told."
However, the story of Consuelo and Alva is not simply one of the emptiness of wealth, of the glamour of the Gilded Age, and of enterprising social ambition. This is a fascinating account of how two women struggled to break free from the deeply materialistic world into which they were born, taking up the fight for female equality. Consuelo threw herself into good works; Winston Churchill encouraged her to make her first public speech, and her social and political campaigns proved an antidote to loneliness. Alva embraced the militant suffragette movement in America, helping to bring the fight for the vote to its triumphant conclusion and campaigning vehemently for women's rights until she died. In this brilliant and engrossing book, Amanda Mackenzie Stuart suggests that behind the most famous transatlantic marriage of all lies an extraordinary tale of the quest for female power.
Customer Reviews:
Consuelo and Alva.......2007-07-12
Fascinating story well presented. This well-researched book has clarified several misconceptions about the Consuelo and Alva story.
Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age.......2007-01-04
I liked the book, some of what the author had placed in her book was from other books.
Fascinating Glimpse Into Two Lives.......2006-12-20
I didn't read this book for a while after I bought it, as I found its heft daunting. However, once I started it, I was totally absorbed. Mackenzie Stuart combines two stories in one. I refer not to the stories of the mother and daughter, but the combination of describing lifestyles that seem almost medieval and then telling the story of the women's suffrage movements in the US and UK from Alva and Consuelo's vantage points.
I can't speak to the few factual errors pointed out by one of the earlier reviewers. However, as for the subejct-verb error cited, although the phrase is incorrect in American usage, I believe it is correct in British usage.
I strongly recommend this to anyone interested in 20th-century social (in both senses of the word) history in the US and UK.
Marvelous subjects, excellent research.......2006-09-20
I'll admit to a certain partiality towards the history of the American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt, subsequently the first wife of the 9th Duke of Marlborough.
Growing up on Long Island as I did, where her parents had their original summer estate, the story of Consuelo's marriage to the Duke was well-known. Some referred to her bethrothal as a sale, a fabulously wealthy American girl traded off to be the bride of a titled Englishman who was close to destitute.
On a personal basis, my family was among the founders of the incorporated country club which, decades later, bought Consuelo's own Long Island estate; I married my first husband in Consuelo's beautiful English-style garden. Therefore, while I feel no sense of commonality with her, I do feel a connection.
Having said this, it will be no surprise that I have read most of the biographies and autobiographies of Consuelo and her mother, Alva Smith Vanderbilt Belmont. From this vantage point, author Amanda Mackenzie Stuart has done an excellent job in her book, CONSUELO AND ALVA VANDERBILT: THE STORY OF A DAUGHTER AND A MOTHER IN THE GILDED AGE. Not even Consuelo's own autobiography gave as clear a sense of her humanity as Stuart does here; similarly, none of the books about Alva and her dedication to the women's suffrage movement gives as good a picture of that lady herself.
Without question, these were two extraordinary women, sharing at least three stories. In fact, three stories may have been one story too many for easy integration into a combined biography that is manageable in scope.
The prose used by the author, while adequate, never crosses that important line to engaging. While the subject always is interesting, the book sometimes fails to be.
There are a number of niggardly flaws, admittedly minor at best, yet the quantity of these flaws, in such a serious work, disrupt the flow of the history. And I cannot understand why the foreign phrases with which the book is peppered never are translated. Surely not every reader of an English-language publication can be presumed to talk French.
Alva was a complex woman; by modern standards, probably one who was disturbed. In the simpler times when she ruled society, money easily smoothed over one's glaring peculiarities.
After the death of her second husband, she lost herself in the suffrage movement. That the cause was important and worthwhile, there is no doubt. This importance does not explain Alva's allegiance to it, however, which almost bordered fanaticism. Nor does this explain her self-centered vision of a movement that, ultimately, impacted the rights of women across the globe.
Her daughter seems to have been a kinder, more generous, personality, just plain nicer all around. Consuelo obviously had the greater capacity to love and be loved. Blessed with a very long life, she had close and loving relationships with friends, servants and, most importantly, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The part of the book about the suffrage movement does not sustain the pacing of the biographical sections, even though the juxtapositioning of the gilded age with the disenfranchised lower classes does provide food for thought.
Overall, this remains a work of the highest level of scholarship.
Consuelo & Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter & Mother in the Gilded Age.......2006-06-07
I found this book to be interesting overall, but somewhat laborious to read at times. I mistakenly thought this book was about the Vanderbilt twins' older sister, but after purchasing the book, I discovered that it is about another Consuelo Vanderbilt, from a different branch of the family. Nonetheless, I found it interesting because I'm fascintated by extreme wealth and the families who have connections to European royalty. However, this book focuses on the feminist roles that both Gloria and her mother, Alva assumed in their lives and this is not a subject which particularly interests me. Therefore, it was tough going for me at times and I had to force myself to finish the book. But this is just my own taste. I'm sure others might think differently about this book.
Amazon.com
Born into New York City's Victorian aristocracy and destined for the constricted lives considered proper for genteel women, the ladies and not-so-gentle women of this book invented new, more fulfilling identities for themselves with all-American aplomb. Bessy Marbury (1856-1933) was a pioneering play agent who fostered the careers of such scandalous writers as Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. Her longtime companion, Elsie de Wolfe (1858-1950), virtually invented the field of interior decorating, making her name by refining the tastes of the rich. Anne Morgan (1873-1952), who began a passionate affair with Marbury in 1904, used her privileged position as J.P. Morgan's daughter to forcefully advocate the rights of working women; Morgan's close friend Anne Harriman Vanderbilt (1859-1940) surmounted such personal sorrows as the premature deaths of two husbands and a daughter's mental illness by devoting herself to charitable work on behalf of drug addicts, prisoners, and soldiers. Veteran nonfiction author Alfred Allan Lewis deftly juggles the interlocking stories of these remarkable women (and just about every famous name in New York society, the feminist movement, the theater, and American government at the time) in an atmospheric narrative studded with shrewd character sketches and colorful anecdotes. He creates an enjoyable group portrait of the four trailblazers, "neither rabble rousers nor conformists, [but] pragmatists who helped to adapt revolutionary principles in ways that made them palatable to the public." --Wendy Smith
Book Description
A quartet of prominent trailblazing eccentric women whose intertwined lives span a century and open a new window on the age they helped to shape
Ladies and Not-So-Gentle Women, a biography in the tradition of Blanche Wiesen Cook's Eleanor Roosevelt, takes us from Edith Wharton's Gilded Age New York City to Hemingway's expatriate Paris and occupied France during World War II with four friends and lovers whose eclectic, extraordinary achievements have been overshadowed by recent attention to their male counterparts.
Elizabeth Marbury, with clients like Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, pioneered as a theatrical/literary agent. Her companion, Elsie de Wolfe, added interior design to the minuscule list of jobs at which a woman could make a living and still be a lady. Anne Vanderbilt, plagued by personal tragedy, worked for the poor, the sick, the addicted, and the imprisoned, and was celebrated for her World War I military hospital in France. The daughter of J. Pierpont Morgan, Anne marched in the Triangle Shirtwaist Strike picket lines and built residences for working women. This delicious, gossipy group portrait is studded with anecdotes of their like-minded contemporaries--Edith Wharton, Ethel Barrymore, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many more--and with such legends as Henry Adams, Bernard Berenson, and Henry James. Never has the revolutionary era from the 1850s to the 1950s, that propelled America to world power, been seen through such an intimate, vivid, and realistic lens.
Customer Reviews:
Four Outstanding Women of the Gilded Age.......2002-01-07
Each of these women could easily have had their own biography, but the author does a pretty good job of covering all four, their relationships with their world and each other. This book is a bit disorganized, but once you sort out the characters, this is a wonderful view of four outstanding women and their world.
Where was the editor?.......2001-08-25
As a voracious reader of everything, but especially social history and even more of olde new york, I was so excited to discover this book. But, it is hard to plow through the verbiage, repetition, and confusion of this book. Each of these woman could have been the subject of her own book and Lewis has done little in the first three quarters to give us anything so we may understand connections that merit their lives being twined together in this fashion. Also, Lewis has tried hard to develop mystery and suspense where there doesn't need to be any - these ladies are great just the way they are, the endless foreshadowing, broad hinting and leaving a story just when it gets interesting is rather silly. The author has obviously done detailed research, but I found it confusing enough to have to jump back and forth between the narratives about the four subjects, but threw up my hands as chapter after chapter began with three pages on someone new who turned out to be the sister or next door neighbor of one of the subjects. Whew, I finally deconstructed the thing by reading each woman's story through by picking it out of the morass. What a shame, because these are interesting women.
Behind every great man there are great women!.......2000-10-25
Thank you Alfred Allan Lewis for creating a book of these spirited women who were the backbone of New York City, American society and worldwide. They are invisible in our history books, but thanks to you and your accuracy for facts their spirit remains alive!
These women influenced their power, money, political and social status to unite and heal mankind. I should know, I was there........to carry on, and say every "Queen" to there own home..
Wonderfully written and rollicking fun!.......2000-02-03
If you love a good victorian novel or a fine James or Wharton work, you will love Lewis' book. He is a superior writer who has brought together an incredible amount of penetrating and enjoyable material about four amazing REAL women. The word that suits this book is ABUNDANCE. I ate it up. There are side stories, and gossipy inserts, historical facts and little known incidents brought to life. I loved it and brought the big babe to bed for many nights reading. What makes a book is the writer and if you add a good writer to great subjects and then times that by 4(!) you have Lewis. Don't let them slam you in the stacks babe -- you rock!
Customer Reviews:
Compelling.......2007-07-26
Since the book was written by a Vanderbilt, I dubiously expected a sanitized version and was delightfully surpised to find the author was brutally honest about the characters covered. This book was engrossing. I could not put it down. The portion about the Gloria Vanderbilt custody case was particularly engaging - what a piece of work the maternal grandmother was. But the book as a whole was a gem - I devoured every page and was sad to see it end.
I do agree with the previous reviewer who said a genealogical tree would have helped to refer to when reading about the characters and keeping track of how they were all related to each other, especially since the family was so fecund and so many of the men had similiar names. I think it also interesting the author does not mention precisely which branch of the family he is descended from. So perhaps he is trying to maintain some of his own identity. But all in all, this excellent read has whetted my desire to read more about the Vanderbilts, as well as other East Coast aristocratic families.
Neo-Cons and Especially Cheney Should Take Heed of the Vanderbilt Past.......2007-07-08
A decided warning is given to present-day Neo-cons by Arthur T. Vanderbilt II in his book, FORTUNE'S CHILDREN. That warning, Don't Lose Your Soul for Money and Power, seems lost on the likes of Cheney, Bush, Libby, Rice and the military-oil-industrial complex that run the United States today.
FORTUNE'S CHILDREN depicts what happens when your heart is over-ruled by grasping greed and conspicuous consumption. The original Vanderbilt, the Commodore, mistreats his children and lives a money-grubbing life like Dickens' Scrooge, and uses nicknames to control his children (Sound familiar, quasi-President Bush?)
After the Commodore's death, most of the remaining Vanderbilts use their power and money to build huge pleasure palaces in Manhattan, Newport and in other posh spots, with their wives often dominating their husbands' lives, spending their money on foolish "high-society balls" and ignoring or micro-mis-managing their own children.
Forgetting that their own lives allowed them freedom, many of the Vanderbilt wives manipulate their children, fixing their marriages, allowing them little freedom of thought, and censoring their outside communication with the world. The domestically-weak Vanderbilt men hide away on pleasure ships, devote themselves only to business and often adopt a cold attitude toward their offspring that mimics the mean and cruel Commodore.
Dick Cheney, our real president, might see himself in these pages, as he runs a secret-happy administration, allows no-bid contracts on work in Iraq, leaks damaging information on his enemies and an innocent CIA agent, and stiffens his face into that horrible scowl.
Dick, you should know your power can't last. Why don't you take your health problems to heart and realize what Vanderbilt (and God) is telling you?
Dick, you can't take it with you.
by Larry Rochelle, author of ARROW, HOME SCHOOLED and TEN MILE CREEK.
Fascinating book about fascinating people.......2007-07-05
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am passing it along to friends. Only one item confused me: the author refers to the daughter of William H. Vanderbilt as ELIZA Vanderbilt Webb. We have been to Shelburne Farms where they refer to her as LILA. Can anyone enlighten me on this?
Great Book!.......2007-01-14
Written by a Vanderbilt about the Vanderbilt family - truly interesting and hard to put down!
Looking Inside the Gilded Age.......2006-08-28
"Fortune's Children" is a page turner - and an eye opener. Mr. Vanderbilt has done extensive research to document the lives and ambitions of this larger than life, very conflicted family. After visiting Biltmore, I wanted to know more about the family behind the fortune, and this is the book that lays it out - historically, intelligently, fascinatingly. I was only sorry when it ended.
Customer Reviews:
"How Could They, They Had Their Own Fish to Fry".......2005-09-07
Gloria Vanderbilt has done a fantastic job of recreating the memory book of Starr Faithfull. She's an imaginative writer who has a beautiful way with words. At first it was difficult for me to imagine the words as coming from Starr, as they seemed more to come from Gloria - no father, a neglectful mother, looking for love in all the wrong places, but then the writing drew me in so well that it didn't matter. The one part she does not explain, is why did Starr have a breakdown after her cousin Andrew raped her, since it appeared she had well-tolerated everything else he had done to her, and even sought out his company. Perhaps Starr didn't even know herself why...but there is definitely a change in tone in the book once that happens, and Ms. Vanderbilt handles it wonderfully, taking the reader into the disordered mind of young Starr, so confused and depressed, yet hopeful. But ultimately unable to find her way to the better life that she deserved.
I got teary at the end!.......2002-01-07
I got chills when I read this book, and this is based on a true story. I felt like I was deeply absorbed in this world of Starr Faithfull. A seemingly perfect world with torrid secrets and emotional pain of a young woman is certainly good novel fodder for any writer. Gloria V certainly writes this story with a great quality of talent and this book is definitely a well worth read over iced tea and chocolate. Perhaps even pizza with pineapple topping and extra sauce...
Superb.......2001-07-24
The Memory Book of Starr Faithfull is entrancing and heartrending- we watch through her words to her diary, Mem, as her young life is tainted by an older man and she is led to a world of hald-madness, allowing herself to be raped and used over and over again. We teeter on the brink with her, until she takes the final step that leads to her own death.
Book Description
A greedy, unscrupulous man loses his business and lover. In his humility he begins to think of others and makes not a material, but spiritual and ethical rise. This is a book of tragicomedy, romanticism, realism, society and art, as well as a study of American culture.
Download Description
Brought up by nothing but hisself.
Customer Reviews:
Good Overall Experience.......2007-03-09
The merchandise arrived timely and the overall experience was a good one.
One of his best.......2005-03-25
You might be able to take a man of humble beginnings and make him a rich man, but can he ever cross the line into Society? Silas Lapham becomes rich from paint that he sells, but fails totally in his attempt to become an accepted member of the upper class. The book also concerns a misunderstood love interest by one of Lapham's daughters: the young man is actually in love with his other daughter. Lapham's business fails at the end, but he doesn't sacrifice his integrity. Which is why it is only the "rise" of Silas Lapham and not the "rise and fall." This is among Howells's best novels.
Should be called "The Rise and Fall of Silas Lapham".......2005-03-03
This book blew my mind! I found it absolutely engaging and the character of Silas Lapham was endearing to the point of surprise. This book says a lot about a class conscious America and even more about how "mom and pop" capitalism gets pushed aside to make way for impersonal mega corporations.
Silas Lapham is a good-hearted, yet rugged individualist who pulled himself up by the bootstraps to make a giant fortune. Once he succeeds however, there is a whole group of people at the top of the ladder ready to push him onto his face, along with his whole "wretched family." No matter what he does to fit in with the "old money" he just can't seem to fit in and the more he works to fit the millionaire mold, the more he compromises his own values.
What's best though is that we see him and his family through good times as well as through the downward spiral after his business crashes, and while it is sad, we see that they return willingly to what once was without coming out any worse.
This book made me smile because the characters, especially Silas Lapham, are realistically flawed and human. I recommend this highly.
A perfectly symmetrical novel -- literally........2004-12-23
To the page, this book is symmetrical in its structure. It opens with a public confession (to a reporter) and ends with a private one (to a priest). In the exact center comes Lapham's moment of realization when he is drunk at a party. There is more to the structure, but that should be enough to get you going.
A reviewer below calls Lapham a 'mogul with a conscience' which is accurate. The true core of this book is the way Howells carefully built it, though. Considering it comes from an age before modernism, it certainly feels quite modern. Give it a shot.
Mogul with a conscience.......2004-03-31
William Dean Howells's "The Rise of Silas Lapham" is one of the earliest American novels about a businessman, and that qualification alone makes it a literary curiosity, but what is most remarkable about it is what its title character is not, rather than what he is. Silas Lapham is not a ruthless, villainously greedy tycoon who bullies his employees and relishes destroying the careers of his competitors and enemies, but a conscientious, likeable man to whom misfortune happens because of his gullibility and sense of guilt rather than hubris.
Lapham is a human emblem of the new American industrial economy of the 1870s. A self-made millionaire in the paint business, he is now one of the richest men in Boston and is radiantly proud of the fact that he has earned every dollar. Having grown up poor and undereducated in Vermont, he still speaks in a rustic vernacular and has yet to understand the rationale behind the rules of high society, let alone assimilate them. A simple, practical man with a sense of duty, he even put aside his business to serve in the Civil War, in which he was seriously wounded and achieved the rank of colonel. He can be boastful and garrulous, but he is not arrogant or overbearing.
Lapham is dearly devoted to his wife Persis, who in turn has supported him through thick and thin, and his two daughters. Penelope, the older girl, is relatively plain but witty and sardonic and, at least in the first half of the novel, never seems to take anything seriously; her sister Irene is the more beautiful but vapid and superficial. Irene falls for Tom Corey, the young man who comes to work for her father as a foreign sales representative, but Tom and Penelope have a mutual attraction that, Penelope fears, could break Irene's heart. This romantic subplot allows Howells to contrast Tom's family, part of the old Boston aristocracy, with the even wealthier but socially crude Laphams with whose daughter Tom's mother has snobbish doubts about his possible union.
The novel has almost the air of Greek tragedy in that Lapham is a man of stature who has fatal flaws that threaten to destroy him. He is a teetotaller, and when he does take the liberty of trying some wine at a dinner party, he embarrasses himself and his family by talking too much. He abstains from gambling, but, instigated by his former business partner and current gadfly Milton Rogers, he gets into financial trouble when he stakes money on bad property and bad stocks. And, to compensate for a traumatic event in his past, he is charitable almost to a fault to a pretty girl whom he employs as a typist in his office.
The style of "The Rise of Silas Lapham" is a dramatic realism similar to that found in the novels of Howells's contemporaries Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser; the structure is straightforward, and the dialogue cuts to the core in laying bare the characters' sentiments and unfolding the plot. It may fall short of being a "great" novel, but for its candid portrayal of a specimen of the nouveau riche, it can be considered a minor monument of nineteenth century American literature.
Average customer rating:
- Dated writing and an unsatisfying book
- Loved this little gem
- Great Reading After a Long Day in Garden
- A Gem of a Book for the Gardener in Everyone!
- Winter Tonic for the Gardener
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Gardening in Eden: Seasons in a Suburban Garden
Arthur T. Vanderbilt II
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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Binding: Paperback
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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
ASIN: 1416540636 |
Book Description
"Though an old man," Thomas Jefferson wrote at Monticello, "I am but a young gardener." Every gardener is.
In Gardening in Eden, we enter Arthur Vanderbilt's small enchanted world of the garden, where the old wooden trestle tables of a roadside nursery are covered in crazy quilts of spring color, where a catbird comes to eat raisins from one's hand, and a chipmunk demands a daily ration of salted cocktail nuts. We feel the oppressiveness of endless winter days, the magic of an old-fashioned snow day, the heady, healing qualities of wandering through a greenhouse on a frozen February afternoon, the restlessness of a gardener waiting for spring.
With a sense of wonder and humor on each page, Arthur Vanderbilt takes us along with him to discover that for those who wait, watch, and labor in the garden, it's all happening right outside our windows.
Customer Reviews:
Dated writing and an unsatisfying book.......2007-08-03
This book was somewhat interesting, but it was too full of fluff for my taste, and I felt about 20 years too young to connect with the author's point of view. His observations meandered through his (very dated) memories of gardens past, with no conclusions drawn, no linkages to culture, no gardening advice, and so on. While some of the stories were amusing enough, it left me unsatisfied, like eating cotton candy when you are really hungry: a sweet taste but no substance. Unfortunately I can't recommend this one at all.
Loved this little gem.......2007-04-01
This little book did what my husband has been trying to do for years-make me appreciate gardening. Mr. Vanderbilt has written a beautiful, funny book on his love of gardening. His writing style is friendly and conversational-you never feel as though he is trying to talk down to you. I can relate to some of his funny stories of animals invading his garden and he has some fun anecdotes about his goldfish and frog pond, which I enjoyed since we have a pond as well. If you are into gardening, or even if you are not-you will enjoy this fun, well written book.
Great Reading After a Long Day in Garden.......2004-06-22
I love to garden. I can't get enough. But when there's too much sun or too much rain, I usually pass my time reading a good book. Recently, I came upon "Gardening in Eden" by this young author from my own home state. What a pleasure. Get a copy and read it after a long day in your garden. You'll find yourself appreciating your garden 10 times more!
A Gem of a Book for the Gardener in Everyone!.......2004-03-25
As an amateur gardener myself, Mr. Vanderbilt's book hit home with me. From going to the local nursery to the smell of freshly mowed grass to the lonliness of winter this book expresses the multitude of emotions gardeners experience throughout the year. A very delightful book! This is one book that will be reread by.
Winter Tonic for the Gardener.......2004-01-29
I read Arthur T. Vanderbilt's book, "Gardening in Eden" as a nor'easter raged outside, blasting our house with a vile wintry mix, and his book brought inside the wonderfully soothing world of the garden in all seasons. With a roaring fire and a hot cup of tea, it was the perfect way to forget the storm and to remember how much fun it is to work outside. Now, I can't wait to get out there again!
Book Description
The Cold War was the war that never happened. Nonetheless, it spurred the most significant buildup of military contingency this country has ever known: from the bunkers of Greenbrier, West Virginia, to the "proving grounds" of Nevada, where entire cities were built only to be vaporized. The Cold War was waged on a territory that knew no boundaries but left few traces. In this fascinating--and at turns frightening and comical--travelogue to the hidden battlefields of the Cold War, Tom Vanderbilt travels the Interstate (itself a product of the Cold War) to uncover the sites of Cold War architecture and reflect on their lasting heritage. In the process, Vanderbilt shows us what the Cold War landscape looked like, how architecture tried to adapt to the threat of mass destruction, how cities coped with the knowledge that they were nuclear targets, and finally what remains of the Cold War theater today, both its visible and invisible legacies. Ultimately, Vanderbilt gives us a deep look into our cultural soul, the dreams and fears that drove us for the last half of the 20th century.
Customer Reviews:
The fading ruins among us.......2007-06-28
Author Tom Vanderbilt takes us around the country examining the evidences left by the Cold War, a war which did and yet didn't happen. From missile silos being destroyed to ones being turned into homes, from "proving grounds" to backyard bomb shelters, Mr. Vanderbilt uncovers sites which often sit right in front of us and simply blend into our landscape in spite of their obviously militaristic features. But he goes beyond the aging and disappearing signs indicating "fallout shelters" and discusses how the threat of nuclear annihilation shaped our cities and our thinking. Cities became the targets, and today's suburbs, often denigrated under the label of "urban sprawl," were a reaction to and a defense against the calamities which befell the densely packed cities of Germany and Japan which proved so fatal during the firebombing raids of WWII. Attempts to fortify buildings, strategies for minimizing casualties, underground cities, interstate highways, early warning systems, NORAD, massive retaliation... it all walks a fine line between critical and absurd, interesting and boring.
I can't help imagining the puzzlement the younger generation must feel at seeing some of these things. Growing up in the 70s and 80s I only saw the end of the Cold War, but the Reagan years witnessed an increase in tensions with the USSR (do younger people even know who that was or what it stood for?) and I recall some events like the local opposition which prevented the deployment of MX missiles in the Utah desert in the late 70s. It also reminded me of movies I saw as a teenager like "War Games" and "The Day After," or music by Sting ("Russians") or Frankie Goes To Hollywood ("Two Tribes") which reflected the contradictions of a peace maintained by the ability of two nations to assure "mutual destruction" of each other within minutes. And yet that seemed to be the reality of the world we lived in, and I thought this book captured that sense very well. Mr. Vanderbilt ends with some sobering observations on how September 11th relates to this struggle to protect ourselves without falling into a "bunker mentality." Overall, an interesting and reflective look at a fading time, a look at the darker side of the optimism and technological advances of the 50s and 60s, with lots of great pictures (all in stark b&w) although maybe not quite 4 stars.
A Haunting Tour of America's Cold War Ghost Towns.......2006-04-06
Tom Vanderbilt's Survival City is a sociological survey of a forty year war that never happened. Rummaging through the modern ruins of Cold War America, Vanderbilt's haunting travelogue takes the reader into old and derelict Altas II and Minuteman missile silos, past deserted radar stations and along the broken desert landscapes of weapons proving grounds. The Cold War was an invisible conflict that most of us somehow learned to live with. But, the Cold War had a visceral reality for those technicians that watched the radar screens for the "hand of god," the massive missile attack expected from the Soviets, which would appear like a skeletal hand reaching down from the North Pole towards North America. Mid-twentieth century architects weren't speculating if a nuclear attack would occur...but when. Fallout shelters and bunkers were integrated into some public and corporate buildings, but for the most part, urban and military planners had written off cities as indefensible. This, in part, explains the growth of suburbia -- the last defense against urban decapitation attacks.
Vanderbilt's writing is crisp with the right combination of horror and moral shock at appropriate times.
Survival City charts the emergence of the city as a war machine, its subsequent elevation to a military target in World War II, and the overall effect weapons of mass-destruction have had on our urban conscience. This book is a great read that even includes a postscript written on Sep. 17, 2001 that eerily reinforces the message of the book.
I found this book to be a fairly short read, with lots of pictures of the various places the author is visiting along the way.
Good stuff.
Final grade: B+
A Fantastic Storyteller Explores the Cold War.......2005-12-21
Tom Vanderbilt's book is not only factual, but provides a riveting adventure through the remnants of America's Cold War. His writing is compelling. What he reveals is astonishing, and the pictures placed through out the book give the story crucial details that portray the reality of the Cold War in a way that words simply cannot articulate. The book draws you in and changes your perspective on and knowledge of history as well as the residue that coats America today.
Heady stuff, very smartly written.......2004-05-16
I'm usually a rather tough grader, but this is the best book I've read in quite some time. Vanderbilt takes us on a lively and diverse tour of cold war America's remaining architectural artifacts (the interstate highway system, bomb shelters, missile silos, misc. military installations - some still in use, nuclear waste sites, etc.) and weaves an analysis of same into an interesting and often surprising commentary on the historical period and the society which gave rise to these structures. For me, the novel perspective of looking at things from an architectural standpoint worked quite well at making the history and those times come alive.
The style is part documentary, part story-telling, part travelogue, part cultural anthropology, and part essay on topics in architecture (generally) which I previously would not have thought about, or thought I had any reason to think about. The approach was successful enough that I found myself frequently being simply and skillfully led to surprising and profound insights, which were a delight. I came away from the book thinking Vanderbilt was an excellent writer with many new and important ideas on the fascinating subject of nuclear weapons, the cold war, and national security generally -- subjects which can easily be made drole, heavy, boring and/or tedious. For many, the so-called atomic era seems long gone and forgotten (and slightly silly in many aspects), but Vanderbilt makes the issues faced then seem relevant to many similar problems facing us today by placing them in a context of continuity. Highly recommended to a broad audience.
Boring - should have been much better.......2004-03-20
Tom Vanderbilt would love to be an architect. He's constantly critical of 1950's architecture - wherever he finds it.
With surprisingly little technical knowledge, he tours testing grounds and bunkers. But it's not all Atomic America: he has the same commentary towards Arcosanti and Biosphere. Where I yearn for a storyline, he delivers watered down architecural critique.
Vanderbilt's writing seems to follow this algorithm: Begin a paragraph using a sentence with an odd phrase in quotations. Then refute this with an academic argument. The first dozen times are fun. A whole book written in this style is tedious.
The 1950's nuclear crazyness presents a rich lode for research. The subject (and readers) deserves much more.
Books:
- The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty
- The Woman in White (Penguin Classics)
- The Works of Jonathan Edwards
- Ulysses S. Grant : Memoirs and Selected Letters : Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant / Selected Letters, 1839-1865 (Library of America)
- Understanding By Design
- War in Val D'Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944 (Nonpareil Books, No 13)
- Watermark
- Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk
- Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery
- Woody Guthrie: A Life
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